Lessons from Justice Gorsuch's Bostock betrayal

Our hero (one of)

Not our hero. And not our savior.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, redefined what the word "sex" means in the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act. Now "sex" includes "sexual orientation" and "gender identity." This was authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by President Trump to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Lessons?

- Don't expect too much in the U.S. Supreme Court, or from politicians' appointments thereto. I'm not saying we shouldn't hope, or work, for the best; and to be fair, Gorsuch has issued a number of good decisions. But so many of us keep hoping that with yet another appointment to the Supreme Court, we'll finally get somewhere. Don't put many chips on that number.

- When it comes to the Sexual Revolution and the madness it has unleashed, the hour is later than you think. Not only did six members of the high court endorse this madness, so did at least one of the dissenters: Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who even in objecting to the outcome, celebrated the successes of "gay rights" and all that goes with that. Message? If you think there is such a thing as natural and unnatural sex; if you think male is for female and vice versa, and if you dare to state that when you look at a man or a woman, you observe their sex is an objective, physical fact, then you are a kook.

- What the High Court really has done is adopt -- without a word of protest by anyone -- a new anthropology. (To be fair, this didn't start with this decision, but this decision completely reflects it, as self-evident as that the sky would seem to be blue (although that may be a social construct! Stay tuned for epistemological updates from the Department of Right Think).

- According to this new anthropology, human beings are not really one race oriented around a complementarity of male-female -- which would seem, on massive evidence, to be the product of many eons of evolution. Irrelevant!

No, in fact, humanity sorts into many sub-species: the female-oriented male, the male-oriented male, the male-oriented female, the female-oriented male, and potentially many more. Indeed, it would seem to be a heretical opinion to state any limit to the subspecies, because that offends against autonomy and self-definition and self-creation, which are the highest truths, higher than mere scientific truth. This new taxonomy of human beings is not unlike the old racial classifications that sorted people as black, mulatto, octaroon, etc., and rigidly defined your options in society. Today we do the same with "gay" "straight" "lesbian" "bisexual" and whatever else can be asserted, saecula saeculorum.

- Also, under this new truth which the Supreme Court accepts -- and cannot imagine anyone (but kooks) not accepting -- it is offensive to examine nature and attempt to discern any purpose or end. Notice how a dogma -- that sexuality must not be spoken of as natural or unnatural, as purposeful or contrary to purpose -- overrides a basic element of science: that of observation and deduction and hypothesis.

- The most breathtaking assertion of this new anthropology is that mere physicality, mere, objective facts, are less important, and must yield to, the will. Autonomy uber alles! So when you are I observe that "Sylvia," who "identifies" as a woman, actually has the physicality of a man, not only is this fact irrelevant, it must be silenced. We may, grudgingly (for now) see the facts of Sylvia's body, but we must not live or act as if we believe what we see. When Sylvia asserts that she/he/xe is male, that is the final word.

- Lots of conservative people fall into the trap of deeming this about religious belief, and of course, so-called "progressives" are only to happy to agree. Far better to say that this is all about some obscure religious belief, rather than about objective, observable facts and the conclusions that may and often must be reasonably deduced from them. That "progressives" have gone in for this mindset is one reason among many why I use the term in quotes, because this would seem to be "progress" to a way of thinking darker than any tendentious claim of "Dark Ages" of the past.

In the "medieval" ages, the Church was engaged in a titanic struggle over whether the world was knowable, and that it operated according to reasonable, discoverable truths; or whether it was none of these things. And the Church was on the side of reason, because that is a necessary inference from "In the beginning was the Word..." Progressives, in their hatred for the Word, and his governance, have opted for a world view that all that matters is will; even matter doesn't matter. This is, quite simply, Satanic.

- So I strongly urge those who share my alarm -- my kookiness -- in the face of this madness not to go along with the notion that we are defending a religious truth. No, we are defending a truth that requires no particular religious belief at all. That the Bible asserts the existence of the sun, moon and stars does not make defending their reality merely a matter of "religious freedom." And lest you think I am making a leap, tell me: what is the difference between asserting that male and female are merely "social constructs," and asserting the same about the stars?

- The word for what Justice Gorsuch takes as self-evident is madness, and it is no good thing, even if we religious people may be able, for a time, to huddle under the protective cover of exemptions provided by law. We may win some future cases, in which we are graciously permitted to remain sane within the confines of our homes or our churches, but this is a poor bargain, and not much to celebrate.

- Meanwhile, if you are a Christian, there really is no reason, finally, to be surprised, and none to be afraid, and certainly none to be discouraged. Do pray. Do strengthen your own virtue in preparation for your own trials. "Take heart! I have overcome the world!" Jesus said. Either you and I believe that or not. It's bad, and it's going to get worse. We may all end up with our heads on pikes for all I know. But think of St. John Fisher, condemned because he would not deny reality to normalize King Henry VIII's lusts. When he was awakened on his last day and informed he would be executed later, he asked if he could sleep another couple of hours. He was not afraid; why should he have been?